Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint._Proverbs 23:4

Cars regularly last more than 150,000 miles and give thousands of hours of service.

Compare this to a top fuel dragster (the really long drag cars). The motors in these dragsters produce nearly 8,000 horsepower and the engines are rebuilt after every single 4-second run the car makes. If they weren’t, they’d blow up (which they sometimes do) within about 5 passes. That’s approximately 1.25 miles of distance and less than 20 seconds of racing for those 5 passes.

Some of us are pushing ourselves so hard in our jobs and in life that stuff is breaking inside us. And it’s not worth it. We treat ourselves like we’re high performance dragsters capable of maximum output for 18 hours a day every day with little else but a mocha, some sad morsels of food, and a catnap we call a night of sleep.

Take it easy. We each have certain capabilities and they’re different from other peoples’. Don’t force yourself to match someone else’s output. You’re you. They’re them. Don’t push yourself to the brink of breakdown.

If we don’t rebuild ourselves every day with meaningful recreation and rest and relationships, we’ll flame out. If we ever hope to love our neighbors better, we MUST start by loving ourselves better.